Published on: 02/03/2022

Leading VC Hiro Capital launches HIRO CAPITAL II investment fund for gaming, metaverse technology

Leading European video games and Metaverse technology venture capital Hiro Capital has announced the launch of HIRO CAPITAL II, a €300m (£251m) fund to invest in both video games and Metaverse technology on February 28, 2022.

HIRO II is set to announce its first investment in April this year as the company’s kept its optimistic outlook on video games and Metaverse technology.

“At Hiro, we believe that Games and Metaverse technologies will be at the heart of the next generation of human communities. As creator entrepreneurs, we back early-stage innovators who are building these exciting digital futures,” founding general partner Luke Alvarez said.

Previous fund, acquisitions efforts

HIRO CAPITAL II is the second time for the firm to invest funds in both video games and the Metaverse market. The first fund was launched in 2019 worth €115M and has made 21 investments for over two years.

The company has made notable investments within the video gaming market on some of the industry’s prominent studios such as Polyarc, Keen, Snowprint, Flavourworks, and Happy Volcano. Over the course of the first fund, the company targeted gamified fitness and creator platforms from FitXR, Zwift, FRVR, Frameplay, LIV, and Loco.

In addition, Hiro also became the lead sponsor in a brand new acquisition of vehicles focusing entirely on both video game and metaverse sectors earlier this year. On February 7, 2022, the said acquisition began its trade debut on LSE and managed in becoming the only second SPAC listed in London.

Hiro MA1 successfully raised £115M aims to target video game and Metaverse acquisitions in the range of €536.56M – €2B.

Objectives, what to expect

The newly launched fund aims to target the market as previous funds and related investments. Hiro has confirmed that HIRO CAPITAL II will back what the company deemed as emerging and prominent video games and Metaverse investors at Seed Series A and B.

In a company statement, Hiro firmly stated its goals, objectives, and which technologies targeted for investment.

“We invest both in front-end content creators in games, esports and digital sports, and in deep tech metaverse applications of cloud, mobile, streaming, big data, AI, wearables, AR, and VR technologies,” the company statement reads.

Alvarez added this year is a key moment in the early stages of development for Metaverse, AR, VR, and Web3. The company according to him wanted to partake in that progress by providing experience and networks to support talents across Europe.

“In 2022 we are at a pivotal moment in the very early phases of the Metaverse, VR, AR and Web3 – these revolutions will take at least a decade and much of the creativity and technology innovation will start in Games,” he added.

“As a team, we have the experience and networks to support the incredible talent that we find across Europe, the UK, and beyond. Our new fund gives us more firepower to find and develop emerging stars and level them up to global scale.”

Other than Hiro, three of the company founding partners, namely Luke Alvarez, General Partner Cherry Freeman and Sir Ian Livingstone went on beyond their own ways in co-founding startups and generating billions of value exits.

Thus far, they have completed five public IPOs and scaled more than six video games companies valued at more than $500M.